Research to advance conservation science through application of USGS GAP data

Duration

June 2012 - April 2015

Narrative

Over the past 4 years, the USGS Gap Analysis Program (GAP) has been strategicallyfocusing on producing and applying national data for advancing conservation scienceincluding land cover data, species ranges and distribution models as well as protectedareas data. With the support of partners, such as the University of Idaho, GAP hasachieved its goal of building consistent national datasets and making them available toview and download via the web. In addition, GAP and its partners have been involvedwith cooperative projects to apply GAP data to conservation science within the US. For example, through GAP’s partners at the University of Idaho, GAP’s land cover, protectedareas data, and Alaska bird ranges were applied to the State of the Birds Report 2011,which reported on the use of public lands and waters by birds through the U.S. Thisreport has been widely distributed within the U.S. Congress and personnel in federalagencies.GAP has experienced a renewed interest in its data and we propose to continue to applyGAP data to advance conservation science. We propose to continue the effort tocomplete species ranges and distribution models for the U.S., as well as update and refinethe land cover data. We also propose to assess the status of biodiversity within the USwith regards to its current and future representation within in our protected areas networkand to examine the type and level of threats that exist for conserving biodiversity.Overall our goal is to show how conservation science can be advanced through theapplication of GAP data.